Fishy facts

In your article on overfishing, it is stated that catches soared to 101.3 million tonnes in 1993 (This Week, 25 March). Unfortunately this statement gives a false impression that marine fisheries have improved in the last year.

In fact, the figure quoted represents the total world production of fish, crustaceans and molluscs from both capture fisheries and aquaculture. It also groups production from marine and inland waters.

A better set of figures for 1993 would be: total world production 101.4 million tonnes, of which the total from capture fisheries is 85.7 million tonnes (marine 78.8 million tonnes and inland 6.9 million tonnes) and total from aquaculture is 15.7 million tonnes (marine 5.4 million tonnes and inland 10.3 million tonnes).

While total world fish production increased by 2.6 million tonnes between 1992 and 1993, 1.87 million tonnes of this was derived from aquaculture and only 0.8 million tonnes from capture fisheries. ...

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